


All of You

by TrueIllusion



Series: Socially Distant in Schitt's Creek [1]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Anxious David Rose, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Pandemics, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueIllusion/pseuds/TrueIllusion
Summary: David struggles with anxious thoughts during the pandemic. Patrick helps him through.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Socially Distant in Schitt's Creek [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016830
Comments: 29
Kudos: 151





	All of You

**Author's Note:**

> Don't mind me, just working through some feelings through fic tonight. Thank you to my friend and beta, PrettyTheWorld, for getting me sent in the right direction on what turned out to be just the self therapy session I needed.
> 
> Title borrowed from the John Legend song of the same name, which now makes me think about David and Patrick every time I hear it.
> 
> I hope this story finds you all safe and well. <3

David Rose was an anxious person. Patrick knew this, and considered David’s tendency to get drawn into circular thought patterns -- ones that often kept him awake at night and sometimes drew him into a panic attack -- to be as much a part of him as his penchant for wearing sweaters in the dead of summer. He never judged David for any of it; it was just one part of the unique, amazing human that Patrick was proud -- and grateful -- to call his husband.

Over the years they’d been together, Patrick had become well-practiced at calming David when necessary -- pulling him out of his downward spirals, and keeping him from drowning in his own thoughts. He knew how to handle it when he woke up in the middle of the night to David staring up the ceiling with wide eyes, and he knew what to do on the rare occasions when he found David curled up somewhere, breathing a little too quickly, his eyes squeezed shut and arms tight around his knees, trying to keep the world out.

Since the wedding, though, David had seemed more… mellow. That was, if David Rose could ever be considered mellow. He was definitely calmer, though, and there had been fewer sleepless nights spent stroking David’s arm or rubbing his back until he fell into a fitful slumber. Patrick had started to wonder if something about the security of having rings on their fingers and owning not only a business together, but also a _home_ , had somehow brought David a sense of peace that he’d never been able to find before. Not that there weren’t still anxious nights -- there were -- but they had slowly gotten fewer and further between, and Patrick was thankful for that, because all he wanted for David was for him to be safe and comfortable.

Then, a global pandemic happened, and their entire world was turned upside down.

When they'd last seen the Roses at Christmas, they’d made plans to fly out to California for a week in the spring, whenever the two of them got tired of the cold and snow. Then, mid-March came, and everything started to shut down. Canada’s border with the United States was closed to all but essential traffic, leaving them with no option but to cancel their trip, with a promise that they’d reschedule as soon as they were able -- figuring that would probably be summer.

They shut the store down that same week, by choice rather than by government order, since as a “general store,” they were technically considered “essential.” But David had already started wearing a mask and eyeing every single customer that came through the door as if they were there exclusively to spread the virus around Schitt’s Creek. So rather than letting David wipe down the door handles every chance he got and sanitize the shelves and every other surface in the store multiple times a day, he figured it would be better for them to close to the public, focusing exclusively on online orders and a new curbside pickup service that David had demanded be contact free -- consisting of one of them placing the customer’s items in an already-open trunk, touching nothing that hadn’t come from inside their store. Patrick had to admit that their protocol was probably a bit over the top, but it had been the only way he could get David to agree to come into the store at all, much less allow Patrick to run orders out to customers’ cars.

For the most part, David refused to leave the house, and they’d started driving to Elmdale for groceries because the chain supermarket there had an app and a pickup service of their own. They hadn’t patronized any restaurants that didn’t also offer curbside pickup, so they really hadn’t been much of anywhere except home, the store, and the car. David hadn’t even seen Stevie in person since the day the store closed. But even with the extreme amount of precautions they were both taking, every cough, sneeze, or moment of feeling “off” seemed to ratchet up David’s anxiety to a level they hadn’t seen for a long, long time. And that meant a lot more sleepless nights, and a lot more moments spent guiding David through to the other side of a panic attack.

Then Patrick watched David’s mental state slowly shift from always on-edge to almost… numb. Like it had all built to a crescendo that was so overwhelming that all David could do was shut down. And for Patrick, that was much more worrisome. He was used to the anxiety, and he knew just what to do in the moments when David’s mind ran away with him, but this was new territory. This time, he wasn’t sure what to do.

Patrick would get up at his normal time every morning, make David’s coffee and a cup of tea for himself just like he did every day, sometimes even going for a hike if he’d thought ahead enough to reserve a time to do so, guaranteeing him a two-hour period to be the only person on the trail. He was used to David sleeping until at least nine on most mornings, but sometime in late June, he’d started sleeping past ten, then eleven, then almost noon, even when they’d gone to bed early. Those were the days when David didn’t even come into the store at all, choosing instead to send Patrick an apologetic text to say he wasn’t feeling well and thought he should stay home. Oddly enough, Patrick would have been okay with spending those days at the store alone if the reason hadn’t been because David seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into a funk that Patrick had no idea how to pull him out of.

On those days, Patrick would keep the store open for pickup until six or so, spending most of his time punching data into spreadsheets or working on their quarterly taxes, then he’d complete the entirety of their closing routine alone, trying not to think about how that was the part of the day that made him miss David’s presence the most. He missed the way David would come up behind him as he counted down the register, wrapping his arms around Patrick’s torso and tenderly kissing his way down the back of Patrick’s neck. He missed the loud music David would play as they straightened and restocked, making sure everything was perfectly in-order for the next day’s opening. He even missed the way David would whine and complain if Patrick had the gall to ask him to sweep the floors or -- god forbid -- clean the bathroom. Really, though, he just missed his husband, who seemed to be getting further and further away by the minute. Even in the times when they were physically together, David seemed... distant. Like he was off somewhere inside his head, caught in a mire of dark thoughts that were just as never ending as the ones that normally amped him up, only these thoughts were constantly dragging him down.

Patrick tried to do what he could -- making David’s favorite foods, ordering a box of chocolates direct from a chocolatier in New York that David had never been able to stop waxing eloquent about, and spending lots and lots of time with his arms around David’s shoulders, pressing soft kisses to his temple before tracing his way down David’s jawline and neck, nestling his head into the spot between David’s shoulder and chest that felt like it was made just for him. But none of that seemed to help for more than a few minutes, and every time he wrapped his arms around David to spoon him as they settled into bed for the night, he’d still feel the deep, shuddering inhales and exhales David always took whenever he was trying to center himself -- to bring himself back from the brink of panic. Because in the moments when David wasn’t moving through life like a zombie, anxiety was still king, and Patrick knew that David had a lot of fears he was holding inside, trying to process and work his way through.

Patrick tried to get David to talk about it, too, but every time he tried, David would shake his head and press his lips together into a thin line before whispering something about how he couldn’t make enough sense out of what was in his head to even tell it to Patrick. And that scared Patrick too.

That was the position they found themselves in one night as July transitioned into August -- sitting together on their porch swing as a summer rain pelted the roof and formed puddles on the sidewalk that led from the back door to their detached garage. Patrick had his arm around David’s shoulders, rubbing soothing circles over David’s bicep while David’s head rested on Patrick’s chest, slowly rising and falling with Patrick’s breath, which was much slower and steadier than anything David could manage at that moment.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about,” Patrick said softly, continuing to trace circles on David’s arm, hoping they’d have a calming effect, and wishing there was something more he could do to keep his husband’s brain from torturing him like this.

David didn’t say anything for several seconds, and Patrick had already prepared himself for the usual answer of, “I don’t know,” when David lifted his head from Patrick’s chest, looking up at him with owlish eyes that were bright with unshed tears. “I’m just wondering when this is all going to be over,” he whispered. “And trying to tell myself that the answer _isn’t_ never, even though it’s really, really starting to feel that way.”

Patrick’s first instinct was to say something to reassure David somehow -- to promise him that it would all be over soon, and everything would go back to the way it was before. But that would have been a lie, and he knew it. He owed David more than that.

“I mean, my parents aren’t exactly spring chickens,” David said, blinking back a tear that was threatening to fall. “And they’re all the way in California. We can’t even go there right now, even if I did feel like I could get on a plane without having a panic attack. And Alexis is in _New York_ , of all places, where… I don’t even want to say it out loud, but… you know…” David paused and took a deep breath, and Patrick took the opportunity to wipe a wayward tear with his thumb. “And she swears she’s being safe, but since when does she ever do exactly what she says? Then I start wondering if I’ll ever see her again, or Mom and Dad, and it’s just…” David closed his eyes, his face crumpling as another tear slid down his cheek. “Sometimes I’d fucking give anything to be right back with them in that motel room, just because then I’d know that we were all safe.”

“You’ll see them again, David.”

“But what if I don’t? What if…” David paused again, letting out a shaky breath, like he couldn’t even bring himself to finish the sentence. Frankly, Patrick didn’t want him to either.

“David, what reasons do you have, right now, in this very moment, to believe that’s going to happen?”

“I guess I don’t, but I--”

“Exactly.” Patrick cut David off before he could go any further down the path of contradiction that would surely take them in the opposite direction of where Patrick was trying to go. “You don’t.”

“But what if something changes?” David asked, his brain clearly not ready to let go of his anxious thoughts so easily. “What if they--”

“David. You can go down this path of ‘what ifs’ all day, but at the end of the day, they’re just that -- what ifs. They’re not true. They’re not what’s happening, right now, in this moment.”

“I know they’re all just lies my brain is telling me… I _know_ that… but I can’t stop. They just keep coming, and I don’t _want_ them to be there, but… they are. And they won’t go away.”

“Well, I think you knowing that they’re lies sounds like a victory to me.”

“You sound like my therapist.” David sniffled, swiping the back of his hand over his eyes.

“I don’t know whether to say thank you or be insulted, but, at the risk of sounding even _more_ like your therapist, how about if we just take this one step at a time, one day at a time? Do you think you can do that? Will you let me help you do that?”

“You know, you’d be really fucking annoying if you weren’t telling me exactly what I needed to hear.”

“It’s a gift.” Patrick smiled as he took David’s hand in his, resting them on his right thigh. “Seriously, though, will you let me help you? Will you tell me when you’re feeling this way, so we can talk about it? So you don’t have to just sit with it by yourself?”

David nodded as he laid his head on Patrick’s shoulder, letting out a soft sigh. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I can try.” His response was barely audible over the sound of the rain, which was still pouring down just a few feet in front of them. It was a sound that Patrick had always found comforting, and he hoped David felt the same.

“And if you’re really worried, we can call your parents, or we can text Alexis, just to check in. Besides, Stevie talks to your dad almost every day. She’d tell you if something was wrong.”

“Yeah… okay.”

“Maybe we could send them something fun, just because. You can make your own little curated care packages.”

“That sounds nice.” David sniffled again, using the hand Patrick wasn’t holding to wipe his eyes.

“You’re not alone in this. I’m right here with you,” Patrick said, squeezing David’s hand. “Let me help you, okay?”

“Okay,” David whispered, as Patrick brought his own cheek to rest against David’s hair. “Sorry I’m kind of a mess right now.”

“You’re not a mess, David. You’re human. And I love you so, so much. All of you. Even the messy parts.”

“Are you sure about that?” David huffed a wet laugh, his head still resting on Patrick’s shoulder.

“I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”


End file.
